1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to the art of cooking appliances and, more particularly, to an arrangement for isolating combustion and cooling air flows within a gas cooking appliance.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
It is quite common to provide a system to cool a domestic oven so that the exterior of the oven is safe to touch during periods of operation and to further protect various control components and instruments from extreme heat. This condition can be extremely important in pyrolytic self-cleaning ovens as such ovens can operate at rather extreme temperatures. Even at lower operating temperatures, it is still desirable to create a cooling air flow about portions of an oven cavity for various reasons.
In gas cooking appliances, it is necessary to not only consider the possibility of providing a flow of cooling air within the appliance, but also a flow of air which is adapted to mix with a supply of gas for combustion purposes. In the art, it has been proposed to direct a portion of the air which flows around an oven cavity to cool the same to air intakes of surface burners incorporated in the cooking appliance. Since the surface burners may not be utilized simultaneously with the oven cavity and the oven cavity generally requires a higher degree of air flow for cooling purposes than is required by the surface burners for operation, such cooking appliances are designed to have particular venting areas for the majority of the cooling air flow. Some of these prior known arrangements provide the venting adjacent to the front door associated with the oven cavity. With such an arrangement, the opening and closing of the oven door can negatively affect surface burner operation. That is, changes in the cooling air flow can disturb the flames associated with the surface burner elements, particularly when the burner elements are operated in low or simmer settings.
Based on the above, the prior art has attempted to control the negative effects of changes in pressure or flow rate of the cooling air on the overall operation of the surface burners. However, there still exists a need in the art for a gas cooking appliance arrangement that will enable an effective cooling air flow for the oven cavity to be developed, with variations in this cooling air flow not adversely affecting surface burner operation. More particularly, there exists a need to totally isolated the combustion air flow for the surface burners from the cooling air flow for the oven cavity within an appliance in order to enhance the effective and efficient operation of the surface burners.